RESEARCHERS DEVELOP NEW SOURCE OF ENERGY USING NANOTECHNOLOGY, August 16 Reaction Can Occur in Microseconds on Surfaces as Small as Microchips

Countries across the world continue to search for new ways to create energy. As our current means for energy continue to deplete, thus making them more expensive to generate, governments are searching for new energy resources. Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have developed a more efficient source of energy involving nano-scale particles that take only microseconds to create and can be developed on a surface as small as a microchip.

One of the biggest issues in recapturing energy set loose by large scale processes (sunlight and tides) in the seas and atmosphere is the problem of energy density. Although rebuffed by experts I have always thought this was possibly soluble by addressing the issue of economic scaling to the micro-scale. Traditionally you build vanes and tidal generators big to capture as much energy as possible at least cost. If it were possible to produce a million tiny devices for the cost of one large one, yet capture energy from more and different situations, it would be a major step forward.

Is Gluon with you? I don't think he's with Rapaire in Boise. I haven't heard the duck/dog rooting around the yard lately (just my garden variety dog, barking at geckos and chasing toads through the herb garden).

That duck-dog is off on a mission to the Interstices for me. He's doing some recce on the possibilities of pan-spatio-temporal BS waves. He's the only one I could trust to do the research, on account no-one else would fit between the Interstices widdout gettin' stuck. If he comes back with his spots knocked off, I'll know we're on to somp'n. The plan is, if the dog-duck makes it back with positive evidence, then we'll send Rustic in -- she already knows how to navigate them territories somehow.

Gluon's not here. Last time I saw him was a couple weeks ago, when our paths crossed in the Yukon. He was trying to be a sled dog, but was annoying all the other dogs by jumping on the sled and coasting downhill, running over the other dogs in the process. He seemed to be having a whole helluva lot of fun, though.

Actually, no, mon vieux. FETCH was terminated because all its funding was shifted from DARPA to Baghdad.

Gluon is on a much more sensitive project, Particle And Nanowave Temporal Y-Axis Reconnaisance And Integration of Dimensionality, known amongst those with the appropriate clearance as Operation PANTY RAID. It is based on some mysterious charred notebook pages left behind by Doctor Feynman after one of his notorious out-of-body experiments, the one he never completed because...well...suffice it say that he is still listed as AWOL by the advanced research labs at Cal Poly.

I could tell you more but then, I would have to kill you. It is classified, you see. And I would never due that to a MOAB Brother. So, mum's the woid, see?

I have a sub-ether SIPRNET transmission from Gluon among the Interstices. He was taken by surprise and deflected briefly from his mission by a muscular Boson, but he managed to hit transition energy just at the last minute and laughed all the way to the next orbit. It wasn't easy. He is now back on task for operation PANTY RAID and will be reporting on the results of interest in due course. He wants to know if anyone has a vacuum cleaner; it seems there is a lot of vacuum among the Interstices and he thought he'd neaten up a bit before moving on.

A scientific advance in theory, relating to zero-point field and its relationship to "particle" motion, mass and intertia, lies behind the mysterious dispatch of young Gluon, the quarking duck-dog, on his secret research mission.

Here's more aboutit from New Scientist.com:

"Is jiggling vacuum the origin of mass? Where mass comes from is one of the deepest mysteries of nature. Now a controversial theory suggests that mass comes from the interaction of matter with the quantum vacuum that pervades the universe. The theory was previously used to explain inertial mass – the property of matter that resists acceleration – but it has been extended to gravitational mass, which is the property of matter that feels the tug of gravity.

For decades, mainstream opinion has held that something called the Higgs field gives matter its mass, mediated by a particle called the Higgs boson. But no one has yet seen the Higgs boson, despite considerable time and money spent looking for it in particle accelerators.

In the 1990s, Alfonso Rueda of California State University in Long Beach and Bernard Haisch, who was then at the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Scotts Valley and is now with ManyOne Networks, suggested that a very different kind of field known as the quantum vacuum might be responsible for mass. This field, which is predicted by quantum theory, is the lowest energy state of space-time and is made of residual electromagnetic vibrations at every point in the universe. It is also called a zeropoint field and is thought to manifest itself as a sea of virtual photons that continually pop into and out of existence.

Rueda and Haisch argued that charged matter particles such as electrons and quarks are unceasingly jiggled around by the zero-point field. If they are at rest, or travelling at a constant speed with respect to the field, then the net effect of all this jiggling is zero: there is no force acting on the particle. But if a particle is accelerating, their calculations in 1994 showed that it would encounter more photons from the quantum vacuum in front than behind it (see Diagram). This would result in a net force pushing against the particle, giving rise to its inertial mass (Physical Review A, vol 49, p 678).

But this work only explained one type of mass. Now the researchers say that the same process can explain gravitational mass. Imagine a massive body that warps the fabric of space-time around it. The object would also warp the zero-point field such that a particle in its vicinity would encounter more photons on the side away from the object than on the nearer side. This would result in a net force towards the massive object, so the particle would feel the tug of gravity. This would be its gravitational mass, or weight (Annalen der Physik, vol 14, p 479).

Rueda and Haisch say this demonstrates the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass – something that Einstein argued for in his theory of general relativity. "In place of having the particle accelerate through the zero-point field, you have the zero-point field accelerating past the particle," says Haisch. "So the generation of weight is the same as the generation of inertial mass." ...

This explains why, if the theory is correct, Gluon might well come back withhis spots knocked off....on one side at least.

I am checking the sub-ether SIPRNET regularly, but all I am getting so far is advertisiements for photon-replacement therapy and sub-atomic Viagara. Maybe there's a glitch in the networking layer of the software. I may have tapped into the future Internet inadvertantly, because of my psychic link with Gluon. This will bear investigating. Future Spam... who'ld a thunk it? Maybe I can send Rapaire when he gets back from Boise...

SRS, whatever do you mean? Gluon? Or Rapaire? Are you implying that if Rapaire sees me first I won't get to see him? An old friend and fellow MOABITE? Did you think I was going to sell him some photon-replacement therapy or something?

Why should I buy vacuum? I was just in Boise, the state capitol, where GWBush is coming -- and Cheney was there at the same time I was (no, I didn't speak to him; I've completely cut him from my social circle for that time he got drunk and farted while swimming in the punch). There was then, and soon will be, enough vacuum there to supply the solar system. Buy vaccum? I'll just ship some in from Boise.

Viscera (Lat) The internal organs in the major cavities of the body. Most often viscera is used to refer to the internal organs in the abdominal cavity.

ANyway, speaking of evisceratin' stuff, I wonder if anyone caught Rapaire's imitation of a ling cod on film or a digital movie, like. I would love to have a QuickTime clip of him doing that. Does he, like, open and close his mouth a lot? And, like, flip his butt around? Cool.

I was directing my thoughts toward the Crawford, Texas Resident of the U.S. as I compiled that list. I started playing with "vacuum" and related words and interesting words presented themselves (some misspelled themselves, and I apparently corrected all but one. . .)

Clearly he believed that other things, such as the capacity for violence, were more important. Billions and billions of dollars more important. Sheesh -- just because you have a different opinion.... :>)

I did not change (i.e., transmogrify) into a ling cod. I merely assisted Mr. Whips in believing that I did.

Did you ever swim in the Bering Sea? Even in summer? When I escaped we were twelve miles off Attu. That water was cold, buddy, cold! A brass monkey fell overboard and jumped back aboard. A witch wore a Thinsulate bra. And I swam from the ship to Douglas Island.

Well, Mr. Whips WAS extremely near-sighted. The First Mate came down into the Oar Room once and Mr. Whips flogged him into place. Man rowed all night before Mr. Whips went to get some coffee and the Captain dared to come in and release him. He carried a forty-four foot long whip made from the forty-four foot long pizzle of a bull and could flick a fleck offen the wings of flea forty feet away with it. 'Course, he couldn't see more'n three inches beyond the end of his ruby red probocis. We got him in a poker game one day and cleaned him. It was my cut of that money that allowed me to take the bus from Douglas Island to the Baranof Hotel for tea with Vitus Bering and Ferdy Magellan. But if I told you that story you'd think I was lyin'.

SCIENTISTS CLONE MADONNA

(From the Borowitz Report)

World Tour to Proceed as Planned

One day after Madonna suffered a broken collarbone while riding a horse on her forty-seventh birthday, scientists successfully cloned the music superstar to enable her upcoming world tour to proceed as planned.

While the platinum-selling recording artist was undergoing surgery for her injuries, samples of her DNA were dispatched to South Korea, where scientists successfully cloned a dog earlier this month.

At a press conference in Seoul, scientist Woo-Suk Hwang pronounced the cloning of the erstwhile "Material Girl" a total success.

"Our cloned Madonna has all of the same genetic characteristics of the original Madonna, and we expect to see her vogueing, getting into the groove, and letting her body move to the music in no time at all," the Korean scientist said.

The successful cloning of Madonna was music to the ears of her tour promoters, who had briefly flirted with the idea of renaming her upcoming world tour "The Limited Neck Movement Tour '05."

But the groundbreaking biological procedure drew some criticism in the scientific community, as some bioethicists said that the cloning of Madonna raised a host of thorny ethical issues.

"My greatest fear is, what happens if this technology falls into the wrong hands?" said Dr. Lindsay Prandell of the University of Minnesota's Institute of Advanced Bioethics. "Most of us are fine with the cloning of Madonna, but what if a madman tried to clone Ryan Seacrest?"

Elsewhere, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that the new Iraqi constitution could hurt the insurgency if tons of copies of the constitution are dropped directly on the insurgents' heads.

Stilly lovely, I am not worthy of your stoutness of bullshit, yet I feel I must challange you to a bullshit bout.......Therefore I ....ah........challange you to a bullshit bout....No rules........No chit chit........oh fuck.........that would be a rule wouldn't it?Okay.aNYTHING GOES GIRLFRIEND.....BRING IT ON....The guantlet has been laid upon the feety of the MOABites and the Mother MoBite and I feel Im up for the challange,Bring it on.........

P.S. (I'm heaDING OUT FOR THE fARGO bLUES FEST IN THE MORN, AND IF i DO NOT RETURN WIITH THE nORTH dECODER RING i WILL bE READY AND WILLING FOR THE CHALLANGE OF bULLSHIT TO YOU.......mY SISTA..........

We certainly need to do all we can to promote BS, but only BS of quality. Therefore and whereas, I propose that MOAB sponsor an award, which shall hereafter be known as "The Mother Of All BS Award For Outstanding BS During A Predefined Temporal Period" (or "The Mammy" for short), for the best BS laid on in the Mudcate Cafe during a predefined temporal period.

This award, the design of which is left up to Bee-Dubya-Ell (who is experienced with cracked pots), will be presented at a virtual session which will be called "The Mammy Jam." Those participating will be called "The Mammy Jammers" and the winner will be addressed as "Mommy" until the award for the next predefined temporal period is awarded.

Politics, being by definitions poor quality BS, is ineligible for a Mammy because res ipsos loquitur. Likewise lawyer stuff is ineligible for the same reason.

This will be a virtual award, so that your home, domicile, box, cell, cave, shack, bothy, castle, pied-a-terre, cabin, palace, apartment, flat, or other dwelling place will not be cluttered up with dust-catching brick-a-brack.

A monetary award will also be included, if it can be raised. This will be in euros, rupees, yuan, or some other currency that's worth something.

The BS challenge is tempting, but my participation in such an event is iffy because THE SEMESTER STARTS on MONDAY and I have a shitload (in the non-BS sense) of stuff on my plate. I'll do what I can to uphold my end of things. Especially if there is a BWL designed cracked pot award.

I'll start by offering up a street corner on which to shoot the [BS] breeze. I hope that will keep a couple of you guys distracted this morning. And if that isn't enough, here's more on the Un-true COD.

Unlike other organisms at the bottom of the food chain, methanogens need little of the traditional sustenance that biologists associate with life. They get by without oxygen and no help from sunlight, said the U.S. Geological Survey's Francis H. Chapelle, who led the study along with Derek Lovley of the University of Massachusetts.

Methanogens simply feed off hydrogen in the rocks around an underground hot spring. No one knew if life could live in such conditions. So the Idaho site was chosen for its lack of organic matter, stuff that is originally produced by sunlight-powered organisms and is known to support other subsurface ecosystems.

"This kind of microbial community has never been found on Earth," Chapelle told SPACE.com, adding that it "may be representative of the kinds of life that initially evolved on the early Earth, and which may presently occur on Mars or Europa."

Methanogens belong to an ancient group related to bacteria, called the archaea. All archaea are outfitted for survival in extreme environments. They are thought to have dominated primitive Earth, when oxygen was a rare commodity.

Idaho is not the only home to methanogens. They cause gas in the digestive tracts of humans. And they're found in oxygen-deprived mud at the bottom of swamps. But they are not seen as essential to supporting other life in these environments, as is the case in Idaho.

But they are not seen as essential to supporting other life in these environments, as is the case in Idaho.

So this means Idaho is not essential for supporting life in other enviroments. it is however essential for supporting the edges of Canada, Washington Oregon, Nevada, Montana and Wyoming. But not Utah. They don't want anything to do with those outsiders with all their funny ways, and not enough wives....